n a bid to deal with COVID-19 impacts on various aspects of Egyptians daily life based on innovation potential, Flat6Labs, a regional startup accelerator programme, has launched, through its Start Egypt Initiative, the “Corona Hackathon” under the theme of “Crisis Awareness Challenge”, announcing three winners.
“Corona Hackathon” is an online competition that targeted Egyptian innovators with ideas that could help in combating the COVID-19 crisis. It is financed by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), International Finance Corporation (IFC), a World Bank member, Commercial International Bank (CIB), and the Egyptian Red Crescent Society.
Speaking to Ahram Online, Executive Director of Start Egypt Initiative Hassan Mansi said that innovations are best unleashed at times of crises. Innovations create solutions that can deal with problems, difficulties, and challenges societies face.
The idea of the application is based on helping users keep a medical record, and medical prescriptions, and it provides users with online medical consultations if COVID-19 symptoms are detected, especially that Mohamed Abdallah, the app developer has lost his medical records in the wake of the COVID-19 dreadful outbreak in Italy.
"COVID-19 imposes significant global challenges that require out-of-the-box solutions that can help keep individuals safe and avoid the likely negative impacts they could face in their daily lives,” Mansi added.
The three challenges that “Corona Hackathon” has adopted include a safe public transport, enriching the irregular labourers, and a safe currency challenge, with a total prizes of EGP 20,000.
The innovations that won the competition were OCRA-Fare Initiative, based on a smartphone application which facilitates e-payments instead of using cash in public transports, in addition to Cayshly Company that innovated a unified payment system for riders and drivers in the public transport.
The third winner was IZZY-Health application, which was developed by an Egyptian businessman residing in Italy.
